Health supplies to keep at home

[emilymaywilcha]

Something nobody ever talks about is what feline health products people should keep at home. We all have stuff for ourselves: painkillers, ice packs, bandages, band-aids, etc. But what are we supposed to keep for our cats? I don't just mean first-aid kits, but general medical supplies. If something is wrong but a vet appointment is not necessary if you have it kinds of things.

 

[catsallaround]

Cone collar

Pain cream

Syringes(no needle for oral feeding)

possibly subq fluids

I keep a few tabs of clavamox on hand for my outside fight prone cat(he starts them...)

A cage big enough to hold overnight(is the cat peeing?  limit mobility for the night)

some no sorb litter or something so cat can pee and you can get sample

A/d

royal canin Baby cat wet-very soft can be fed in syringe to adult or kittens who are not in the milk only stage

milk replacer/syringe or bottle

pill gun if you need one

terramycin

heating pad

Most importantly get on now and look for the er clinic in your area, it's number should go into your cells and addy written down in car and take a drive there at night.  Know where it is.  Nothing worse then driving to unknown with a cat screaming in pain. 

Of course I have many cats so it may vary for someone with only a few.

 

[simka]

This gave me a wry smile. Apart from some bandaids, the only medical supplies in my home are for the cats. If I needed something like benadryl or neosporine, I'd have to nick some of theirs!

I have a chest of drawers full of cat medical supplies. Bags of fluids with lines and needles; feeding syringes, AD and Recovery; Neosporin, Anabac, and Lamisil; antibacterial and ant-inflamatory eye drops; Little Noses and a bulb syringe for sucking out nose goop; vetwrap and all kind of dressings and paddings; Hydrogen peroxide (which can be used as an emetic as well as topical anti-bacterial) and alcohol; Benadryl pills and liquid; within date, last-few-in-the-bottle antibiotics so I can start treatment; e-collars; topical flea treatment and ear-wash for mites; Cerenia pills for extreme nausea and vomitting. That's all I can remember from work.
 

 

[ldg]

We're pretty well stocked for cats and people, and some of the things overlap. :lol3:

This list overlaps with emergency supplies, but I don't separate them in my mind.

Always keep on hand:

Colloidal Silver 500ppm
Hibiclens
Hydrogen Peroxide
All kinds of dressings, wraps, cotton balls, q-tips
Thermometer
Neosporin
Diagel
Miralax
Pumpkin
Cerenia (anti-nausea med)
Mirtazipine (appetite stimulant)
Pepcid a/c
Yunnan Biao
Revolution
Frontline
Drontal
Droncit
Cat bag
Syringes (for assist-feeding)
a/d cans
Cans of food (I feed raw, but have cans in case)
Have pill guns, but don't need it for our cats
Carrier space EASILY ACCESSIBLE for 8 cats
Flip-out screen tent that can hold all of them if necessary (if there's an emergency and they have to be contained outside our home for whatever reason :dk: ). This is NOT a carrier.
Trap
Emergency throw-away litter pans
ALWAYS have extra litter in the car
Bottled water
Distilled water
paper plates and bowls
There might be stuff I'm forgetting.


The stuff we use most is the colloidal silver and the diagel. Won't ever be without them again.

The one thing we probably should have but don't is a scale.

When we were actively rescuing, we always kept several kinds of antibiotics available. Now we either take the cat to the vet or just go pick something up.

 

[simka]

Just remembered - safe heating pad, kept in the drawer, and ice packs in the freezer.
 

 

[emilymaywilcha]

Wow, that is a lot of stuff!

Wilbur used a heating pad during his last two weeks. However while looking for a cat bed on Amazon, I found a lot of heated beds in a variety of shapes, sizes, and colors.

What is the difference between Frontline and Revolution? I thought I was supposed to have one or the other, not both.

 

[ldg]

Just remembered - safe heating pad, kept in the drawer, and ice packs in the freezer. 

Oh yeah, those too. And those packs you can just open and they generate heat, or the packs you just break, and they become cold. :nod:

 

[pushylady]

What is the difference between Frontline and Revolution? I thought I was supposed to have one or the other, not both.

I believe they both contain different ingredients. Some people will use only one kind, while others will alternate each year.

 

[sugarcatmom]

On top of many items already mentioned, I also keep on hand some slippery elm bark powder (works great for either diarrhea or constipation) and pure aloe vera gel. Oh, and a wide selection of homeopathic remedies and flower essences.
 

 

[emilymaywilcha]

On top of many items already mentioned, I also keep on hand some slippery elm bark powder (works great for either diarrhea or constipation) and pure aloe vera gel. Oh, and a wide selection of homeopathic remedies and flower essences.
 

How can the same thing treat two opposite problems?

 

[Willowy]

How can the same thing treat two opposite problems?

Because they aren't so opposite (except in results ). Both are caused by an imbalance of water in the intestines. Pumpkin can also treat both.

Dang, I feel under prepared :anon:. I have very few supplies on hand compared to some of you. I have my "big bag o' poison" that I take to treat my mom's, brother's, and grandma's cats for fleas, mites or worms. That has some Revolution, Advantage, pyrantel pamoate, praziquantel, ivermectin, Capstar, a pill splitter/crusher, a pill gun and some syringes. Of course I use these things for my own cats, too, but it's all in a bag so it's portable.

I have enough carrier space for all of them (really!). The screen tent is a great idea, though. . .I need to look into that. Of course the usual first-aid/emergency stuff like peroxide, alcohol, Neosporin, q-tips, bottled water, canned food, etc. I have some liquid Gas-X, but that's in case the dogs bloat--not sure if cats ever need it. I always keep kitten Fancy Feast (cheap version of a/d :tongue2 on hand, and try to keep chicken baby food around, too, but it expires so I give it to the dogs and I forget to get more (excuses, excuses). I have a bottle of amoxicillin. Laxatone, Nutrical, a big plastic eyedropper.

 

[ldg]

Ivermectin - oral? I've got to chat with the vet about that. The feral cats here almost always have lung worm. I would LOVE to be able to treat it in an ongoing basis!

Oh yeah - also have slippery elm. :nod:

As to the Frontline/Revolution thing. Frontline does a MUCH better job of treating ticks and fleas than Revolution. Revolution, at least where we live, does a terrible job of treating ticks. But it does a good job on internal parasites, and provides protection against heartworm. So for the two ferals we're able to treat, we alternate Frontline and Revolution every two weeks. It's a lot of poison, I know. But I'd rather that than heartworm or ticks. It's the protocol the vet uses on her barn cats. We only treat them with Revolution and Droncit through the winter.

 

[emilymaywilcha]

This is really interesting. I was not expecting to see so many drugs. I could only get amoxicillin and Lamisil for myself with prescriptions, so I can't imagine being able to get them OTC for cats. Some drugs I had never heard of.

 

[ldg]

You can't get most of them OTC for cats. You have to have a relationship with a vet that knows you know what you're doing.

 

[emilymaywilcha]

Willowy, the "full-screen tent" is actually an octagon with a flat top that you can fold for easy storage.They can hold a whole litter of kittens with their mom and have a pocket on the outside.

 

[emilymaywilcha]

 

[crickets mom]

LDG-- What do you use the colloidal silver for?  What about betadine, for cleaning wounds, good or bad?

 

[ldg]

That's not what we have, and it's getting not very good reviews. The problem seems to be that the bottom attaches via velcro? :scratch: This is what the first review of it (that I see) says: "THIS PLAYPEN LOOKS NICE BUT MY TWO CATS WERE OUT OF THIS THING IN 30SECONDS. WISH I HAD KNOWN BEFORE TIME. NOW I GOTTA BUY A REGULAR CAGE TO KEEP THEM SECURE."

What we have is a "screen tent" for people. It folds down into a circle. It's meant to have four people in chairs sitting in it outside, and there's no velcro involved, all the edges/seems are sewn together, and the door uses a zipper. When you unzip it from it's carry-case, it almost pops itself up. :lol3: But it's not marketed as a pet product. It's just we live in an RV, and for a while were on the road. We saw the thing and thought it'd be perfect for the kitties - if there's ever an emergency and for whatever reason they couldn't stay in the RV, it'd be really nice to be able to contain the cats and not have to keep them in their crates.

Last fall, with Hurricane Irene, the local vet lodge had electricity and water before we did. They were accepting people and animals, but the animals had to be crated. Had we needed to go there, it would have been perfect, really, because it doesn't need to be staked into the ground or anything. It CAN be, but doesn't need to be. LOVE that the floor is attached to the walls. :nod:

 

[catsallaround]

I forgot so much that I have on hand lol.  Usually when a cat gets rx for something I ask for a few extra to compensate for lost pills.  You end up with some extras.  For someone with few cats it is not that smart but if you have enough cats you KNOW you will use it.

Some things can be bought off label at a farm store and some from out of country(pet site or for humans)

 

[emilymaywilcha]

Laurie, I was not saying that specific tent is a great one. It was just an example to show Willowy. I am sure others like it use zippers and stake into  the ground.